Question: What makes a Iron Man fan? The answer in my case comes in two parts: One, an
early love of technology. Two, ease of suspension of disbelief.
My first go around with comic books coincided with the early years of the cyber age.
Some of my childhood memories are of my school classes being put on hold to watch the Mercury
through Apollo space programs unfold on national TV.
America was flexing it's technological muscles, transistors, plastics, marvelous chemical
compounds (many of which were subsequently found to be not so marvelous), advances in medical
treatments and I am not even going to begin to touch on the nuclear programs and there impact
on the youth of the time (there is not enough room here). These and many others were all
wonders of modern science. Every problem presented to mankind had an answer looming on the
horizon, held in the hand of a scientist. "Technology will save mankind" was the unspoken credo
of the time (and I still think that is the simple truth of things).
Television was what now is described as "Classic TV". TV....many of those long winter
Saturday afternoons were spent watching 50's science fiction movies: The Day the Earth Stood
Still, Forbidden Planet. Oh yes, did I forget to mention what at the time
represented the pinnacle of near future technology....the robot! What Iron Man fan cannot trace
there love of Shell Head to a fascination with the mechanical man, and so, with a head full of
technological gobbledegook and a quarter (you got change back) off I go to the local corner drug
store.
Now I am not going to try and tell you that Iron Man was the first comic I ever bought. As a
matter of fact if memory serves me my first comic was a Scrooge McDuck, but it did not take me
long to get into superheros. Believe it or not Marvel comics were not readily available in my
home town at the time, so it was Superman, Batman, The Flash, these were the headliners of my
local. Even at a young age I found them boring and predictable (sorry). To this day I still find
DC comics to be shallow as far as story lines go (there are some diamonds in the rough though),
and I am one of those people that think that Batman would be better off if he dropped Robin off at
the high school football game and left him there (I believe Batman could be the biggest fictional
character ever if DC would target a older audience and explore his dark side more but I digress).
So.... I drifted into Gold Key comics, Magnus Robot Fighter, and Dr. Solar to be exact. Now I want
to tell you Magnus and Solar were cool. Lots of robots in Magnus. The ramifications of Solar's
powers were mind blowing. Good story lines, great artwork, but still something lacking, the ability
to believe in the character.
Then one day.....hey! a new robot comic? No. Iron Man? hmmmmm, have to check this out.
Fantastic! The artwork is great, stories beat the daylights out of Superman and this guy is just a
regular person, no space alien he. No nuclear mutations, no magic, no stupid unbelievable baggage
to carry along with you while reading. He is just Tony Stark, regular guy (OK, filthy rich but
still normal). He uses his money and brains to build a suit of high tech armor and goes out and
takes care of business. This could happen! Popular Mechanics has had articles of how to build
airplanes in you garage. Given the amount of money this guy has it is feasible that such a suit
of armor or a close approximation could be constructed.